[throwaway5752]

That's the incorrect framing. There is no "fixing" this short term. But we can prevent a great deal of future damage by immediate, drastic action.

Don't come up with excuses for your daughter, just simply start acting in a way where you do not have to make excuses.

[jonbronson]

Personal action alone will be insufficient to stem the tide. Without shutting down fossil fuel development and use, we don't stand a chance.

[geddy]

I 100% agree with you and also despise this frame of mind. Funny how that works!

What I mean is, I do all the things (personally) that I can do - I don't eat meat or dairy, I hardly drive, I don't travel much, I work from home so I don't commute, etc. But, unless every single person does this (or heck, is even aware they _should_ be doing more themselves), I can't see it changing much.

The reason I don't like this "I'm just one person, it's insignificant" excuse reminds me of a few years ago, during the Final Fantasy XIV Online beta. Yeah, this is a silly comparison, but there were major issues with logging in, because the beta servers had reached their max capacity. You used to stare at the login screen hammering the Login button forever, and maybe you would _finally_ make it online.

What you ended up with, was that when players would finally be able to login, they would just idle instead of logging back out, so they wouldn't have to go through the login hell again (as there was no automatic idle-kick), thus continuing and even worsening the cycle of others not being able to login. If everyone had just logged out when they were not playing, far more people would have been able to play. But since "everyone else was doing it, my insignificant acts don't matter", no one got to login, and the world was filled with idle players who were AFK.

This went fairly off-topic but the core concepts at play are vaguely similar. People should generally act in a way that, if everyone were to do it, the world wouldn't descend into chaos.

[jsdalton]

It’s a nice thought. But imagine there was a giant flood in your neighborhood, and your solution was to grab a spoon from the kitchen and start scooping spoonfuls town the drain.

Maybe your example would inspire your neighbors to reach into their own kitchen drawers for a spoon, and maybe in some happy version of the universe all the spoons would add up to enough and your neighborhood would be saved.

I don’t think this metaphor is as poor as it sounds — if anything a spoonful of water against a neighborhood flood is probably orders of magnitude more significant than your personal contribution to slowing global warming.

So I’ve come to the opposite conclusion as you: this focus on personal efficiency is misguided, and we should spend the vast majority of our efforts on advocating for policy shifts like increased carbon taxes and technological solutions.

[throwaway5752]

I think the better example would be everyone grabbing a sandbag. It's not going to stop the flood, but it can protect some buildings. Your example is bad because you posit everyone making individual changes will make no difference. That is false. Everyone acting together will not solve it, but it will make a dent. Your order of magnitudes are off.

[kiliantics]

There are ways in which personal action can shut down fossil fuel development/use. You could take extreme measures of sabotage, e.g. destroying equipment and infrastructure of the non-renewable energy sector. Less extreme measures could be non-cooperation with any institutions that are engaging in the carbon economy, e.g. by organising your workplace and going on strike till your employer divests from carbon.

[zaroth]

> You could take extreme measures of sabotage, e.g. destroying equipment and infrastructure of the non-renewable energy sector.

Let’s try not advocating for eco-terrorism here please.

[primroot]

Mass-surveillance makes impossible to have any honest cold-minded debate on the subject unless one is an important person, but here is some relevant material. https://www-cdn.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/...

[kiliantics]

It was not phrased as an advocation, merely as an argument that it is in fact possible to effect change on an individual or small-scale level.

As for calling it "terrorism", you would not call what is happening in Hong Kong right now terrorism would you? However, it is the same kind of "sabotage" of the smooth operation of society that would be necessary to bring about change, as it puts pressure on those in power to act. Grounding planes and shutting down major roads can be terrifying and are the same effects real "terrorism" has too.

[throwaway5752]

Yes. And you control one of them directly, so focus on that. Focus your advocacy and votes on the other. This is one of those challenges that require doing more than two things at once.

edit: Dr. Michael Mann agrees https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/1160656713642631170

[throwaway5752]

I wrote this in response to a reply comment (since deleted). But I spent enough time that I wanted to post it:

You can make massively meaning differences every day with minor personal decisions. If everyone in the US did them it would have a significant global impact.

1. Replace all bulbs with LEDs. 2. Set your AC warmer at home, in the thermostat in your hotel rooms, and anywhere else you can 3. Eat as little meat as you can 4. Replace your car with an EV or highly fuel efficient hybrid 5. Get the highest efficiency AC/Heater 6. Change vacation plans to avoid CO2 emission 7. Install Solar PV. 8 Lower your hot water temperature 9. Repair instead of replace 10. Up the R value of your insulation...

You can make a huge dent (more than 50%) in your personal CO2 footprint. PARTICULARLY as a member of an industrialized society. You can make more impact than a dozen people in a developing country.

[tunesmith]

This is the sorites "grain of rice" paradox. Personal action serves as signals to help encourage the larger systemic changes, which follow of pattern of not happening for a long time until a LOT happens in a short period of time.